Thursday, 14 April 2011

Ramblings of an Ill Knitter...

Yup, this week I have been struggling a bit. Strangely not just because of the normal pain thing, though that hasn't helped. I have been waking up several times a night needing to either:

move because of the pain,

move to get a drink because of dehydration caused by the medication, or

go the loo, because of the excessive liquid intake!

What fun! The cat thinks it's great that she has someone to play with during the night.

However, aside from that I have had a niggly cold for a while and because of my tablets I can't take cold relief medicine. I make do with menthol based cures, which for the main part work ok. but the last couple of days have been horrific. My eyes were sore and my sinuses were screaming. All I could do was go to bed and hope for sleep to hit. Then after two days of this suffering I wondered whether it might possibly be hayfever. I took an antihistimine last night and today I don't feel half as bad today. I still a bit of a sore throat and I'm sniffly, but no screaming eye socket pain and swollen sinuses. Yay, I can think again. However, I don't have much stuff to share with you, but I'll show you what I have got.

My Heliotropic Pullover, is coming along nicely. In fact, now I have it joined under the arms it is all stocking stitch from here on in. It has been placed aside, with reluctance, to be finished in hospital. It isn't much further on from last time I showed you, but at least you can see vaguely how it will look. Just pretend the blue t-shirt underneath is yellowy-green and you will see exactly how it will look once it is finished (I hope).

I've done a bit more since this photo was taken, as I wanted to get the pattern set up properly. I do love working on this pattern and yarn combo. It feels such a treat, and I can't wait to be able to wear it. It's nice to know that it will work out beautifully, which is odd, as I usually like to try new things all the time. Maybe the uncertainty of the coming weeks is making me seek out something comfortable and predictable.

I am also currently working on creating a cardigan with sort of wrap fronts. I have a cardigan like that, which I bought in a shop. I love the idea so much that I am going to use my precious Araucania Ranco Multy to knit it.

I love this colourway, and got it for the bargain price of less than £20 for all 5 skeins, including postage. Since I wound all 5 skeins into yarn cakes, I love the colour even more. I have swatched and it looks even better than that knit up!

I thought about using the Hestia pattern by Jacqui Knits, to make my cardigan, as it is the closest thing I could find, to my existing garment.

After looking at the pattern on other knitters I decided it wasn't quite right. I wanted the pattern to have much wider front panels, to really wrap me up. I also really liked the Daedalus pattern from knitty.com.

I really liked this pattern, but I just wanted something in plain old stocking stitch. I thought the lace might get lost in the colour changes. It also doesn't really sit on the shoulders well enough for wrapping it around, which I want to do.

Basically, as always, I couldn't find exactly what I wanted to knit, so I have dug out my trusty Custom Knits.

Honestly, this book is the best few pounds I've ever spent! I have used it time and time again. I have done my swatch in my new yarn and I think I'm going to make it as a top down raglan. That way there will be lots of very long rows that don't need concentration. See how I'm planning in advance here? Then if the garment stretches too much I'll put in some false seams to give structure. I have taken measurements from the much loved shop bought cardigan, so between having something to match it up against and being able to try it on as I go, I think this could turn out ok.

I don't know if I'll have anything to show you before I go into hospital next week, but you never know. Everything feels so jumbled up at the moment, I can't predict how I'm going to feel from one day to the next. So, I'm just going to roll with it, and if self inflicted commitments, ie blogging, get missed, then so be it. It isn't the end of the world, but I will try and read my favourite blogs and leave comments when I can.